Nick Ainger: I will meet the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, South (Mr. Harris) to discuss those issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) makes an important point, particularly about the position of Arriva customers who travel beyond Swansea and want to connect to a First Great Western service. We must ensure that we provide joined-up rail services, and further discussions need to take place between Arriva and First Great Western. I will urge my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to address the problem and encourage the companies to work together more constructively.

Cheryl Gillan: Does not the Secretary of State realise how hollow his words ring and how out of touch he is with what is happening on the ground? What does he say to people in places such as Abergele and old Colwyn, who are losing dedicated community beat officers, or our chief constables in Wales, who have to take officers off the beat to fill civilian desk jobs? Where has all the money gone and why does Labour continue to fail to deliver proper policing for the people of Wales?

Peter Hain: The truth is that there are 1,000 more police officers and 1,300 more police community support officers under Labour, crime has decreased and people see neighbourhood policing that they never saw under the Tories. The clear choice for everybody in Wales at the Welsh Assembly elections in May is voting Labour and against the ragtag, Tory-led, Plaid Cymru coalition that opposes us.

Des Browne: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the defence training review rationalisation programme. Before I do so, however, I am sure that the whole House will join me in extending their condolences to the friends, family and colleagues of Marine Thomas Curry, Lance Corporal Mathew Ford and Kingsman Alexander Green, who were killed in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq over the weekend and earlier this week. I pay tribute to their bravery, professionalism and courage. No words can express my admiration for our armed forces and the work that they do daily in the most difficult and challenging of circumstances.
	In November 2004, the Ministry of Defence issued invitations to negotiate for two contractual packages under the defence training review rationalisation programme. The programme is a large and complex public-private partnership project that seeks to transform the way in which we deliver six types of specialist training on a defence-wide basis to support better the future needs of the armed forces.
	All bidders have put in strong bids, and I am grateful to Members in all parts of the House, who have expressed such strong support for relevant bids. I can now report that, following a detailed evaluation process, the bids from the Metrix consortium have been judged to offer the best technical and prospective value-for-money solutions to the defence training review requirement for both packages 1 and 2. As a result, we are appointing Metrix as preferred bidder for package 1 and provisional preferred bidder for package 2. Metrix has won each package independently and separately, and we now plan to take forward negotiations with the consortium.
	On 18 December, the MC3 consortium submitted an unsolicited last minute alternative proposal for package 1. That proposal was considered, but was quickly discounted as failing to meet the requirements of the invitation to negotiate. As an unsolicited proposal it was also outside the rules of the competition.
	I must emphasise that identifying the best training solution for defence has been the primary consideration. The evaluation has involved some 200 subject matter experts. The training element was overseen by Professor Molyneux, an independent expert in modern training technology and e-learning.
	For package 1 we are confident that we have a broadly affordable solution that will deliver modern and efficient aeronautical engineering, electro-mechanical engineering and communications and information systems training. Currently, that is delivered at nine locations, involving some 3,500 military and civilian staff providing instruction to 6,500 defence trainees at any one time. Over a five-year transition period starting in late 2008, Metrix proposes to rationalise the estate, initially on to two major sites, St. Athan and HMS Sultan. Marine engineering training will remain at HMS Sultan until 2017, when that too will relocate to St. Athan. The St. Athan site will be largely a new-build facility.
	A small enclave will, however, be retained at Bordon for vehicle recovery training, and some communications training will continue to be delivered at HMS Collingwood. Overall, that will have a varying impact across nine sites: Arborfield, Bordon, Blandford, HMS Collingwood, Cosford, RAF Cranwell, RAF Digby, HMS Sultan and, of course, St. Athan.
	Package 2 is more complex. It aims to provide training for logistics and personnel administration, police and guarding, security, languages, intelligence and photography. Currently, that is delivered at 18 locations across the United Kingdom, involving some 2,900 military and civilian staff, and 4,500 trainees.
	The evaluation process identified Metrix as a clear winner for package 2, but we have more work to do to resolve the outstanding issues to address a significant affordability gap and to explore possible synergies with package 1, which should deliver improved value for money across the programme as a whole. Until we have resolved those issues with the bidder we cannot confirm the final approach that the MOD will take, including whether all, or part of, package 2 goes forward. However, it is only right that we inform the losing bidder that it has been unsuccessful.
	Starting in late 2008, the current Metrix proposals would again see rationalisation to St. Athan over a five-year period. However, all training currently undertaken at Leconfield, Wethersfield and a number of smaller federated units would remain at those sites, as would the majority of training currently delivered at Chicksands.
	Together, these proposals will embrace the very best training methods available today, in an environment designed for military learning. Full advantage will be taken of the latest technology for simulators and distributed learning solutions. The proposals will deliver top-grade single living accommodation for all ranks, with single en-suite rooms for many. New recreational and sports facilities will enhance the quality of life for our trainees, staff and their families.
	I take the implications of the change programme for our people very seriously. The impact is likely to be significant for civilian staff required to transfer to the new partner. They will, of course, be protected in full accordance with the TUPE regulations, which cover the transfer of undertakings. However, some redundancies following transfer cannot be ruled out, and should any occur, they will be taken forward sensitively and in full consultation with trade unions and staff.
	I do not underestimate how disappointed some hon. Members and their constituents will be where we are seeking to withdraw training establishments. That will be most keenly felt in the west midlands at Cosford, and in North Dorset at Blandford. While not wishing to pre-empt any specific decisions, I am pleased to say that there are no plans to close either site. The current training at each will continue until 2011, and the Department is exploring a number of proposals for the potential future defence use of both Cosford and Blandford. Those proposals will be announced, subject to the normal review and approvals processes, but a military presence is expected to remain at both sites in the future. At Cosford, Metrix proposes building a learning resource centre and developing a national training research and development support centre. In addition, it will work with the Department to examine how the programme might support the establishment of the national manufacturing skills academy.
	It has been suggested that the Ministry of Defence has a conflict of interest by virtue of its minority shareholding in QinetiQ, which is part of the Metrix consortium. That was recognised at the outset. Frankly, it is not unusual for QinetiQ to be a member of a consortium bidding for MOD work, or to be a potential beneficiary as a subcontractor. Therefore, we have put in place stringent steps to separate the roles of customer and owner in relation to QinetiQ. Those steps were made plain in the prospectus to investors when QinetiQ was floated on the stock market last year, and a copy was placed at the time in the Library. I am content that that the DTR evaluation process did not take improper account of the QinetiQ shareholding.
	My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence and I have written today to all those hon. Members whose constituencies are affected by this announcement, with details of the changes as set out in the winning bidders' current proposals. As the way forward becomes clearer, I will update the House. I have also made available in the Library a number of key documents, including the invitations to negotiate and Professor Molyneux's letter validating the evaluation process.
	I conclude by emphasising again that the bids from the Metrix consortium offered the best technical and value-for-money solutions to meet the future needs of defence specialist training. As I stated earlier, we now plan to take forward negotiations over the coming months with the Metrix consortium. This remains an extremely complex public-private partnership programme and a number of significant issues remain to be resolved, particularly over the proposals for package 2. I do not plan to make any further announcements until that work has been completed.

Liam Fox: I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. May I, too, begin by paying tribute on behalf of the Opposition to the servicemen who lost their lives recently? Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of Thomas Curry, Mathew Ford and Alexander Green.
	I should also like to thank those of my colleagues who have argued so forcefully for the facilities in their areas. I refer in particular to my hon. Friends the Members for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne), for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) and for Gosport (Peter Viggers), my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot), and my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter). All their constituents will be affected by the proposed changes.
	On the positive side, it would be good to have high-quality training, and a high-quality training establishment that might act as an aid to recruitment in the future, especially given that demographics will not be on our side. Moreover, at a time when we are celebrating the Union in this country, it is also a positive to see Wales playing a full part in the future of our armed forces. That will send the strong message to those who want to break up the UK that far more unites us than divides us. The statement will also be regarded as a positive opportunity for the academic capabilities of the west and south-west of England, not least among which are the excellent technical skills offered by the academic institutions of Bristol and Bath.
	However, the statement is remarkable for its very opaque nature, and for what it does not tell us. Exactly why did the Metrix bid win? What were the key decisive factors that made it the preferred choice? Will the Secretary of State give us an idea of the number of redundancies that the MOD has assessed to be likely as a result of this decision? What type of alternative defence use might be envisaged for Cosford and Blandford, and when might those employed there get further details?
	Perhaps most worrying are the financial elements of the deal. Exactly how much will the proposals cost? There was nothing in the statement to tell us that. Has the Chancellor agreed to underwrite the full cost of the projects? At a time of overstretch in the armed forces, a tight defence budget and an even tighter spending round in prospect, will the proposals be financed through a growth in the defence budget—that is, with new money? At a time of inadequate service accommodation and mothballing ships, and when there are capability gaps, any further reduction in front-line budgets would be wholly unacceptable.
	Of particular concern are the terms used by the Secretary of State. He says, "We are confident that we have a broadly affordable solution". It seems to me that a solution is either affordable or not. What does "broadly affordable" mean? When he says that we have to address a "significant affordability gap", what sort of gap are we talking about? What sort of money does the Secretary of State think that that gap involves? As a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, those terms must mean something to him. The House, the country and all those affected by the changes have a right to see some numbers put on that vague terminology.
	We all want to see quality training, but I am afraid that the statement raises far more questions than it provide answers.

Anne Main: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I need your guidance because, as you aware, in many constituencies, including my own, health issues are paramount. The loss of the proposed super-hospital for Hatfield has been very hard for us, particularly as before the election the Secretary of State for Health visited us. Since the election, I have requested meetings with Ministers to discuss the failed proposal and debts. You can imagine my surprise when I learned that the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) had been to St. Albans on 10 December, because I was unaware of that visit. I was unaware, too, that meetings were held to discuss the hospital bid. Will you give me guidance on the matter, Mr. Speaker, as the Minister has not as yet given me any indication that he will discuss the matter with elected Members, although parliamentary wannabes seem to receive that courtesy?

Orders of the Day

Jack Straw: I beg to move,
	That this House takes note with approval of the report of the Joint Committee on Conventions of the UK Parliament (House of Commons Paper No. 1212 of Session 2005-06).
	Let me begin by commending to the House the report of the Joint Committee on Conventions, which forms the subject of the resolution before us. The report is an impressive piece of work that has provided us with clarity on the key conventions that must govern the relationship between this House and the other place.
	Before I talk about the report in more detail, I should like to pay tribute to all the members of the Committee from both Houses. Many of its members from this House are in their places today. The outcome of its inquiry and consideration far exceeded the expectations in this House when we debated the establishment of a Joint Committee on 10 May. That is a great tribute to all its members. The fact that the report is unanimous strengthens still more its conclusions about the current operation of the conventions.
	I pay particular tribute to my right hon. Friend Lord Cunningham, who is a very old friend to me and to many of us, and who showed his customary felicity, as well as patience, in drawing together different strands of opinion and ensuring that there was a coherent and unanimous report. When the other place debated the report yesterday—I should tell the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) that it agreed an identical resolution to approve it—my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor called it the "bible" on the existing conventions.
	I also pay particular tribute to one member of the Committee who is no longer with us—Lord Carter, who is sorely missed in both Houses. He had a very distinguished career in the other place. I got to know him well when, as Home Secretary, I had the happy task of being the Secretary of State with by far and away the largest amount of legislation of any Government Minister—some things never change—and I had to persuade him of the wisdom of that legislation and the ease with which it would go through the House of Lords. He was ever co-operative, but also clear about his own opinions when my enthusiasm overtook my judgment. He is sorely missed in all parts of this House and at both ends of the building.
	Today, the House is invited to approve the Joint Committee's report. The Government have published a response to the report—Command Paper 6997—the remit of which, for reasons I that will explain, necessarily goes further than that of the Committee itself. However, the House is not being asked to approve that response, happy though I would be for that to be on the Order Paper as well. We are instead looking for cross-party agreement on the report of a cross-party Committee and on its description of the conventions as they stand.
	Yesterday in the other place, there was general endorsement of the Committee's conclusions, although the debate extended to include consideration of an issue raised in one paragraph of the report—the application of the conventions to a future House. I will come to that later. Although it is not the subject of the resolution, it will no doubt form a substantial part of the debate. We are looking for Parliament-wide approval of the Committee's report on the current relationship between the two Houses. The Government accept the Committee's descriptions of that relationship and its definition of the key conventions.
	One of the fundamental requirements on the Joint Committee was to consider the conventions on the basis of the primacy of the House of Commons. Indeed, the primacy of the Commons is the fundamental principle guiding all current discussions on any future and further reform of the House of Lords, and it has not, to my knowledge, been questioned by any party during previous debates on reform.

Jack Straw: We are not remotely doing that. My right hon. Friend says that matters will "be called into question". Of course they will be called into question—they always have been. Those who take the view that any elected element in the other place poses an inherent danger will use that as part of their argument. I understand that. However, the Committee states that future arrangements are outside its remit and it is therefore not remotely the case that we are today closing down all debate on the future composition of the other place. I shall deal with plans for that later.
	My right hon. Friend was a distinguished member of the royal commission and he will recall that it, under the chairmanship of Lord Wakeham, considered the relative powers of the two Chambers at great length, almost in anticipation of the examination question set by the Joint Committee on Conventions. The royal commission recommended an elected element—of, according to the alternatives, between 12 and 35 per cent. Recommendation 2 on page 33 concluded:
	"The House of Commons, as the principal policy forum, should have the final say in respect of all major public policy issues, including those expressed in the form of... legislation. Equally, the second Chamber should have sufficient power, and the associated authority, to require the Government and the House of Commons to reconsider proposed legislation and to take account of any cogent objections to it."
	Recommendation 6 states:
	"The reformed second chamber should maintain the House of Lords convention that all Government business is considered within a reasonable time."
	Other support was given to what was understood then and now to be such conventions. I agree with the conclusions of my right hon. Friend and his colleagues on the royal commission.

Jack Straw: Indeed it did, but I can be forgiven for evolving my view. I do not believe that it is sustainable to have a wholly appointed second chamber into the dim and distant future of the 21st century. We have to improve its legitimacy and we have to accept the consequences that go with it.

Jack Straw: I am going to make some more progress before giving way again.
	Let me move on to deal with the Joint Committee's findings on the conventions and the Government's response to the report. First, on the nature of the conventions, paragraph 279 of the report concluded:
	"Conventions, by their very nature, are unenforceable."
	In our debate in May last year, on the motion to create the Joint Committee on Conventions, the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) quoted a saying among French lawyers, which he said could be translated into English crudely as
	"To codify is to modify".
	The hon. Gentleman went on to say that
	"whenever one tries to codify practices, general principles, ideas and—above all— arguments, one takes away the essence of those various attempts to get at principles and ways of behaving, reducing them to rules and statements that start with the words "Whenever" or "If"."—[ Official Report, 10 May 2006; Vol. 446, c. 469.]
	There was a great deal of merit in what the hon. Gentleman said.
	Conventions evolve with time, providing us with a degree of flexibility that is required by Parliament. That is a further answer to the point made by the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea. The conventions are an integral part of maintaining a good, healthy, working relationship between both Houses. We agree that it would be wrong to involve the courts in a question of a breach of a convention, and the Government would not seek to do so. As we see in this House all the time, however, conventions are none the less powerful constraining principles that must not be lightly ignored.
	I come to the issue of reasonable time. The House will be aware of anxiety in the Government that delays in the Lords in considering Bills were unjustly disrupting the legislative programme. The Government's manifesto of 2005 therefore proposed that the Lords should be given 60 sitting days to consider business. The Government welcomes the Joint Committee's conclusion, in paragraph 153 of the report, that a convention exists that the Lords should consider Government business within a reasonable time.
	Throughout, our primary concern has been to seek
	"the outcome that is behind the manifesto commitment",
	as I explained to the Committee in June last year. That outcome is the proper consideration of Bills in the Lords, as the revising and scrutinising Chamber, and their timely return to the Commons. We are not wedded to the method specified in the manifesto and are glad instead that it has been used as a starting point for the Committee's consideration. We also support the Joint Committee's proposal that an indication could be made on the Order Paper of the other place when it has spent more than 80 days on the consideration of a Bill.
	The Government also accept the Committee recommendations on the Salisbury-Addison convention. This important convention is the third pillar upholding the primacy of this House. A Government must be allowed to carry through their programme of work—their commitment to the electorate as outlined in their manifesto. That is vital to democracy and to Parliament's accountability to the people. The Salisbury-Addison convention was first formulated in 1945, when circumstances were very different. There was an overwhelming Labour majority in this House and a phenomenal, stupendous majority for the Conservative party in the other place. The Conservatives had more than 1,000 peers; the Labour party had just 16.

Theresa May: I join the Leader of the House in paying tribute to the work of the Joint Committee on Conventions chaired by Lord Cunningham. The Committee members included many senior and distinguished Members of both Houses, who brought a wealth of experience to their deliberations. We are grateful to them for their efforts and sound judgment. I also join the Leader of the House in paying tribute to the late Lord Carter. I did not have the benefit of knowing him, but I know that he was widely respected in both Houses and across all parties, and will be sorely missed.
	I welcome the report of the Committee and am happy to support the motion to note the report with approval. That does not mean that I accept every word of the report, but I approve of its overall findings. At an early stage of his speech, the Leader of the House said that the Committee's work had exceeded expectations. If I may say so, that was a generous turn of phrase, given that when the Committee was established many of us expected that far from confirming the role of the upper House and its conventions, the Government intended the Committee to seek ways to undermine that role and restrict the powers of the other place, or at least to prevent an increased or enhanced role for the House of Lords. I remain of the view that that was the Government's intention in setting up the Joint Committee.
	That was hinted at in the report, when the issue of the primacy of the House of Commons was discussed. There is reference on page 23 to relations between the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Paragraphs 59 and 60 state:
	"there remains a distance between the Government and opposition visions of the role of the House of Lords. At the risk of over-simplifying, the opposition parties are broadly happy with the Lords' behaviour since 1999; the evidence we have received suggests that the public at large feel the same. The Government do not.
	It is generally accepted that any reform of the Lords' composition which introduced an elected element would invite the House of Lords to be at least as assertive as in recent years, and probably more so. The Opposition accept this and say they would welcome it. The Government would not. They hope to fix the role of the Lords, by a process of codification, so as to prevent this outcome."
	I am pleased to say that the Committee avoided that intention of the Government. That is why I am slightly surprised by the strength of the Government's welcome for the report, particularly as it arose from a Labour party election manifesto commitment mentioned by the Leader of the House—the policy of restricting deliberations on legislation in their lordships' House to 60 days.
	Despite all that, the immense good sense and experience of members of the Committee led them down a different path. I welcome their acknowledgement of the role of the House of Lords, its effectiveness and the good workings of the conventions that exist in that House, and between us. As the Committee found, the conventions work, and their flexibility is a benefit. The House of Lords does not hold up Government business and, crucially, its process of scrutiny aids the process of developing effective legislation rather than prejudicing it.
	Let me now turn to the specifics of the report. I will deal first with the primacy of the Commons, which has already been the subject of some exchanges across the Chamber. The Committee was instructed to accept it and, having taken evidence, did not question it. I welcome that, as in my view it is the crucial underpinning of any consideration of the roles of the two Chambers. It must also be accepted, however, that any change in the composition of the House of Lords that introduces an elected element will change the relationship between the two Chambers.
	In this regard, I agree with both my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash). It is possible to envisage a changed arrangement in which primacy remained with the House of Commons, but the nature of that primacy was different from its nature today. Although it is derived from elections and the fact that we in this House are 100 per cent. elected, our primacy is exercised by functions, and it is perfectly possible to envisage decisions in the future that would change those functions.

Theresa May: My hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) will not be pleased to know—in fact, he already knows—that I have supported having a substantial element of elected Members in the House of Lords, and voted for an 80 per cent. elected House last time. Indeed, I sit on the cross-party working group on reform, which is chaired by the Leader of the House. He expects to publish a White Paper very soon that will lead to debates in both Houses; helpfully, he set out the timetable this afternoon.
	My right hon. and hon. Friends and I have entered into these discussions in good faith, aiming to find a way through the many difficult and complex issues that need to be addressed if elections are to be introduced or any element of reform is to be brought to the House of Lords, and we will continue to do so. I am concerned, however, when I hear that press briefings are taking place suggesting a degree of unanimity on all the issues. There are many issues on which much remains to be discussed and considered.

Simon Hughes: That is a perfectly proper question and it ties in slightly to the points made by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton. Let us imagine that later this year, in this Session, the House of Commons votes for a predominantly or partially elected second Chamber. Let us imagine that relatively quickly, as I hope will happen—indeed the Labour manifesto indicated that it would happen during this period of the Labour Government—we go to something that was intended in 1911, but was a bit slow in arriving: namely the completion of the process to get rid of the hereditary peers and to arrive at a democratic second Chamber. That has been on the agenda for nearly 100 years. A Liberal Government wanted to do that, but could not. The Liberals still want to do it, and we hope that, with the co-operation of progressive socialists and social democrats in the Labour party, we can deliver it.
	Yes, of course, there will then be a change in the nature of things. That is not genetic inevitability, but probability. People will say, "We are elected now—80 per cent. of us." That will happen eventually. It will take a while in coming. If we do it by thirds, it will probably take 16 years, or 12 years, or 15 years, but it will happen. I am sure that people will say, "Have we got the balance of powers between the two Houses right?" But that change has been happening anyway over the last 10 years. It has been happening since the reforms of the House of Lords that got rid of the bulk of the hereditaries. It has been happening in the day-to-day arrangements. What we have been asked to do, and have done, is collect together the developments that have occurred and reassess where we are so that we know what we are talking about and what the balance of power between the two Houses is. Having decided that that is the balance of powers, and that we are going to change the structure, the issue will come back on the agenda. But we are still in control of that process. We have not lost any control over it. We will have to win an argument for saying that we want to keep the same relative power.
	We come to the point about what happens if people are elected to the other end of the building in a way that is more representative of the views of the public than the way in which we are elected. The change in my lifetime is that when I was born, in the '50s, 95 per cent. of the votes went to the two largest parties—Conservative and Labour—whereas now only two thirds of the votes go to the two largest parties. In the case of the great '45 Government, during whose tenure the famous Salisbury-Addison doctrine was agreed between a Conservative Lords and a Labour Government with a majority in the Commons, something in the order of 35 per cent. of the total public voted Labour. At the last few elections, as the hon. Gentleman knows, just over a fifth of the public voted Labour. Parliament and the Government do not have the same authority in terms of the number of voters or the share of the voters supporting them.
	There will be an argument and that will force this House to think about whether it can sustain Governments on the basis of so small a share of the electorate. The issue that will come on to the agenda is how we can give more authority to the Government elected here. The hon. Gentleman knows what my answer will be: a more proportionate electoral system. Let me say as a postscript that I am not against single-Member constituencies being represented here. That is not my party's view, but it is my view. I understand the argument. For me, having a proportionate Commons does not necessarily mean that we have to lose the link with our constituents, which we all value. The Roy Jenkins commission, commissioned by the Labour Government, came up with a proposal that would answer that conundrum satisfactorily and that could command consensus.

Simon Hughes: If the right hon. Gentleman will allow me, this will relate to something that he said.
	Part of the description of where Labour will go next was given at the end of last Labour manifesto, which says:
	"Having refused for decades to accept any reform of the archaic House of Lords, some"—
	Conservatives—
	"now claim to support a fully elected House. The choice is forward with new Labour to modern institutions and more power than ever devolved to communities and successful local authorities. Or back with the Tories to a government indifferent to the health of our democracy and negligent of our institutions."
	That was an unfair representation of the progressives in the Conservative party, but at least it committed the Labour party to going "forward ... to modern institutions". In the year 2007, no one can suggest that a House of Lords elected by nobody is a modern legislative chamber. One cannot humanly, possibly, even begin to argue that—

Simon Hughes: Not at this second. The hon. Gentleman will rightly wish to make a speech if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as will other hon. Members.
	Let me add to what I have said about the primacy of the Commons. That primacy will be secured by the fact that nearly all Ministers, including the Prime Minister and the principal Secretaries of State of the main Departments, are Members of this House. By definition, that means that this is the prime Chamber. Additionally, this is the only Chamber that anyone contemplates being elected at one time. This is the place where Governments are made and unmade, the place where the Ministers are and the place that votes Supply.
	I disagreed with what the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton said about the Salisbury-Addison convention. I am absolutely against junking history when there is no need to do so. I studied history and I love it, and it is important that we remember our history. However, the Salisbury-Addison convention, named after two Marquesses of Salisbury and one Viscount Addison from the past two centuries, has changed, so we need a new convention. In parenthesis, the Salisbury-Addison convention did not bind our party, because we were not party to it. It was a convention between two parties only, made in entirely different political circumstances. Under this convention, it was agreed that manifesto Bills, as the term is generally understood, would not be blocked by the Lords, and that Government Bills would normally not be blocked by the Lords.
	Occasionally, the Government try to misrepresent things, as they did in the case of identity cards recently. They pretended that it was a Government Bill, because they had said that they would introduce identity cards, but the manifesto clearly said that the scheme would be voluntary, and rolled out slowly. However, the Government then came back with a Bill that said that the scheme would be compulsory, so we cannot always take them at their word. The convention is different now, and we Liberal Democrats accept, as does the Committee, that the convention should bind the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
	The right hon. Member for Maidenhead made a strong point about secondary legislation, and the Committee was very clear on the subject. It is important to note that the Lords do not normally reject secondary legislation, but they have the power to do so. The Committee set out six occasions on which the Lords must have, and retain, that power. The first occasion is when special attention has been drawn to the importance of the instrument by the relevant Joint Committee. The second occasion is when the order is a skeleton Bill, and Parliament was told, "The detail will come later; that's when you can decide". The third occasion concerns orders made under the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 or the Human Rights Act 1998. The fourth relates to orders that specifically require super-affirmative procedure—that is, double-lock yes votes in both Houses. The fifth occasion is Northern Ireland orders, because of the unusual lack of democratic decision making and scrutiny for Northern Ireland legislation, and cases in which we are devolving primary legislative competence, for example to Wales or Scotland. The sixth occasion is when we are persuaded to delegate a power on the basis that we will have a vote later, as was the case with the provisions on jury trial included in the Criminal Justice Act 2003.
	The Committee hinted that we need a process for considering the whole issue of secondary legislation, including European legislation. I support that, as do my colleagues; there is too much legislation of that kind, and there is not enough parliamentary control of it. I support the idea that we should be able to amend secondary legislation, as that would help us to do our job better.
	There was agreement that we will not do what Labour's manifesto wants us to do and set a fixed time in which pieces of legislation must go through the Lords. The current system has not been abused. The long time that it has sometimes taken to get a Bill through the Lords has normally been due to the fact that the Government held it back at various stages. The danger is that if there were fixed times, or a limit to the number of times that the Lords could reject a Bill, the Government would play games. They would delay things until the last minute, and manipulate the timetable. We must allow the Lords ultimately to say no. The result is not that the Government lose their business—the Parliament Acts are their safeguard—but that they may have to reintroduce the Bill in the subsequent Session, as happened in recent times with legislation on jury trial for serious fraud cases. If we had fixed-term Parliaments, things would be different, but we do not have them yet, and until we do, we must keep the right of the Lords both to decide what is a reasonable time, and to send work back for us to reconsider.
	I pay tribute to the Lords, who have done a fantastic job. They have often saved the country from legislation that was far too authoritarian or oppressive. They have upheld human rights when the Government of the day persuaded the House of Commons not to do so. That is not to say that if there were elected people among them, they would not do just as fantastic a job. The fact that they are not elected is not a precondition of their doing a wonderful job. I hope that they will continue to be confirmed in the importance of their secondary but hugely important role of helping us to legislate well and hold the Executive to account.
	We sign up to the final two conclusions, too. It is absolutely correct that there was no proposal that we should legislate for conventions, as there must be flexibility. Such legislation would be a straightjacket; it would be nonsense and a ridiculous inhibition. There was no suggestion that there should be a change in the financial privilege of the House of Commons, or that it should not have pre-eminence in such things.
	In the end, the report turned out to be an important piece of work and, surprisingly, it commanded consensus in a large Committee of both Houses. It gives a clear statement of the position—a "state of the nation" view, as it were, of Parliament in 2007. Having made that clear, we can improve procedures, do more to hold Government to account, and improve the way in which we scrutinise legislation. We need to do all those things, but, knowing the facts, we can do away with prejudices and decide whether we want to reform the second Chamber. My colleagues and I hope that we will create a senate that is wholly or predominantly elected. It would not change the primacy of the Commons, but it would change the nature of Parliament, which is a good thing.

John Spellar: There are a variety of means by which people come to that Chamber. They are nominated by the various political parties. Those parties have the ability to nominate through being represented here, so they derive their authority from the electorate. Equally, it has possibly been generally agreed that it is desirable to have people who are distinguished in their fields; even the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey argued for that. That would not necessarily mean that they were instantly electable under any system, but it might be of advantage to have their specialities represented, perhaps through having a variety of Cross Benchers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) commented on methods of achieving that, and the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey praised the efforts of such Members. I might have some differences of view on that; I might think that they were trying to thwart the views of the electorate, who clearly wanted us to take effective action. However, a system of divided mandates and a variety of mandates is a different matter, as was pointed out by the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind).
	According to the Clerk of the Parliaments,
	"The introduction of an elected element would undermine this as the House could begin to claim an electoral mandate. It can be argued that the greater the proportion of elected members the stronger the mandate. If the Lords were elected by a proportional system they might even claim a superior mandate."
	We should not disregard that thought lightly. It is a serious danger, and one about which we need to be clear.

Andrew Miller: This is probably the only the third time in 15 years in the House that I agree with the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack). One never knows, there may be a fourth time in the future.
	If I had been asked 20 years ago, I would probably have argued unambiguously in favour of a fully elected second Chamber. However, after some years in this place, I started to realise that the relationship between the two Houses is much more complex than is perceived from outside. I reached the view that it was important that we had the sort of debate in which I was delighted to participate during the work of the Joint Committee.
	In the last debate in the House, with the curious voting system that was presented to us, I decided that because the debate was taking place in a vacuum—we were debating the structure of the House of Lords without considering its purpose—I chose to vote for abolition, not because I was a unicameralist particularly, but because it was illogical to debate structure without debating purpose.

Andrew Miller: I am not sure that the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington, East (Mr. Kemp) was intended to be a shot across the Government's bows. He and I are both devout party loyalists, but sometimes we point out to Front-Bench colleagues that complicated matters facing the House can be explored in different ways.
	The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) expressed concern that preferential voting was becoming a convention, and it is true that, once a system is in place, it tends to become regarded as a given. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House acknowledged that part of his engagement in cross-party discussions involves talking to the bishops. There may be a historical explanation for the bishops' representation in the House of Lords, but there is no logical one. Even so, they are there, and so my right hon. Friend has to talk to them.
	Incidentally, if that debate leads the bishops to invite my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to ensure that all faiths are represented in the House of Lords, I might have more faith in the faiths. However, my point is that the ground rules that are in place at any given time will determine where a debate will lead.
	In an intervention earlier, the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) made an observation about the scrutiny process that needs to be corrected. I do not think that he intended to make a party-political point, but he will know that the Committee looked at each Session from 1980 to the present to see how many Bills took more than 61 days. The length of time taken cannot be attributed to any particular Government—

Nicholas Winterton: It was a great honour to be one of three Conservative and Unionist Members who were appointed by the House to serve on the Joint Committee on Conventions. I found it an uplifting experience and one that taught me a great deal about what goes on in the House of Lords. Although I am prepared to confess to the House that I have long been a supporter of the House of Lords and the role that it plays in our constitution and in the way in which Parliament holds the Government of the day to account and scrutinises legislation, I have to say that, at every sitting of the Committee, I became more and more convinced that the House of Lords, as it is currently comprised, fulfils a valuable and important role. I became more and more convinced that my personal instincts about the House of Lords were merely strengthened by the evidence that was given to the Joint Committee.
	May I pay my personal tribute to Lord Carter? I knew him before I started to attend the Joint Committee, of which he was a leading member from the House of Lords, but I got to know him a lot better during its sittings. I found him to be an informed, kind and constructive member of the Committee. I thus join in the tributes that have been paid to him for the role that he played in Parliament as a leading member of the Government party in the House of Lords. He made a major contribution to the debates that took place and the production of the Joint Committee's report.
	Perhaps I have established the fact that I do not wish to see any change in the composition of the House of Lords whatsoever. Although we are debating the report of the Joint Committee, which the Government recommend that we welcome with approval, inevitably, as all the speeches made so far have clearly shown, we must refer to what the future of the House of Lords might be. I am sad that the Leader of the House is not in the Chamber. He is working hard in search of consensus on plans for so-called reform of the House of Lords.
	A core question at the heart of the debate is that of whether the second Chamber should have an elected element. I fully endorse and support the views expressed by the right hon. Member for Warley (Mr. Spellar). I also fully support the views expressed by perhaps the most experienced man in the House, the Father of the House, the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams). He built on the excellent argument put forward by a man who has been a Member for almost four decades: the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), who has been a Minister.
	The more one examines the prospect of an elected element in the House of Lords, the stranger the whole idea becomes. Perhaps significantly, all the parties whose leaderships have been calling for yet more elections, in this case elections to the House of Lords—although this has not been mentioned in the debate, it has been pointed out by my noble Friend Lord Howe of Aberavon—have been piling up debts because of their inability to finance their existing election campaigns.
	Again, no one has yet mentioned the amount that a partially or completely elected House of Lords would cost. We would not only have to pay the elected Members, however many there might be, but have to pay out huge sums to the staff and researchers whom such elected Members would inevitably demand as of right. We know the extent to which expenses and allowances have increased in this House in recent times. If the public were really to debate the matter, I wonder whether they would be happy to pick up a large sum by way of the taxes that they have to pay to meet the cost of Members of the House of Lords. At present, Members of the House of Lords receive only reasonable expenses. I will say one thing about the House of Lords that I would say in front of any audience: by goodness, we get value for money from the upper House.
	In an intervention on the right hon. Member for Warley, I sought to point out how much expertise there is in the other House. Perhaps there are a number of people whose presence there might well be questioned, but overwhelmingly the people who sit in the House of Lords provide valuable experience and expertise. They have skills and talents that they bring to the scrutiny of legislation.
	I should like to lay a myth to rest: even the Prime Minister has said that it is wrong that an unelected House should legislate. The House of Lords is not a legislature, but an amending and delaying Chamber. When the House of Lords sends amendments back to the Commons, it gives this House, which often passes legislation over-hastily, and in some cases actually unscrutinised, a second opportunity to look again at such legislation. To return to the cost of elections, there will be, perhaps shortly, a proposal that party campaign funds should receive much larger subsidies from hard-pressed taxpayers—that is, if we go ahead with the election of Members to the House of Lords. I wonder what the public would think about that.
	I shall quote from an article by Lord Howe of Aberavon, who I mentioned earlier. He is a leading Member of the other place and a past Secretary of State, who held many important offices in Government. He said:
	"The removal, in 1999, of all but a handful of hereditaries has established a chamber in which neither major party has more than 30 per cent of the seats; the remainder are Lib Dems or crossbenchers, in much larger number; and the bulk of the membership of the entire House is dominated by diversity, expertise, experience and independence."
	That picks up the remarks that I made a few moments ago.
	As a Member of this House, I can say that there have been occasions in recent times—including under a Conservative Government, but more frequently under a Labour Government—when the feelings, aspirations, and expectations of the people of this country have been more accurately and properly represented in debates in the House of Lords than in debates in the House of Commons. That is a sad criticism of this place. As Lord Howe says, in the other House,
	"To win a vote you have to secure, by persuasion, a majority of the 40 per cent—rather like addressing a special jury. But the Lords' role is, in the last resort, advisory and not decisive."
	It is wrong for Liberal Members to talk about democracy, when in fact the other place is an amending and delaying Chamber, a Chamber that gives this House a second chance to consider legislation that was perhaps over-hastily and rather badly drafted when it first went to the other House.

Nicholas Winterton: I am happy to agree with the hon. Gentleman. In the report, we suggested that there should be improvements in the way that the process was dealt with. I entirely share the view that if the House gets an amendment back from the House of Lords, it is important that it knows why the Lords disagreed with the Commons, and similarly, when the Bill goes back to the Lords, it is important that the upper House knows why the Commons disagreed with the Lords amendment.
	On secondary legislation, I support my right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House. There is a serious problem in the way the House deals with secondary legislation. I know that the right hon. Member for Swansea, West, the Father of the House, who chairs the Liaison Committee with distinction, is more than aware that the procedures in the House to deal with secondary legislation are totally inadequate. I am disappointed that the Procedure Committee's recommendation that the Lords and Commons should have a Joint Committee to deal with certain matters relating to secondary legislation was not accepted by the Government. I hope that they will reconsider that and recognise that secondary legislation is inadequately dealt with in this House.
	On financial privilege, the House of Lords fully appreciates its limited role in respect of finance. Yes, it can deal with matters of administration, but it cannot deal in any way with policy. That is appropriate. This House deals with matters relating to money, finance and taxation. The Committee unanimously concluded that codification, which the Government had wanted—[ Interruption.] The Leader of the House is a very gracious, courteous amusing man who is held in great respect in all parts of the House—

Tony Wright: I mean what the Leader of the House referred to earlier when he talked about there being no zero sum games. Up until this point, the belief has always been that if one makes one part of Parliament more effective, it will make another part less effective. That is simply a misunderstanding. The point is to make Parliament as a whole more effective. The Government are now saying that that is the point of what they are doing in relation to this House, which we have not really discussed but which is an important ingredient. If they are serious in wanting to make scrutiny here better, as I hope and believe that they are, that will contribute to that end. If we can secure a second Chamber that is more authoritative and legitimate, that will also contribute to it. Parliament as a whole will then become more effective at scrutiny. I take that to be a huge gain and a kind of breakthrough.
	We are making real progress. We want to preserve our tradition of strong, coherent, effective government, but we must match it with a much better system of strong, coherent and effective accountability. We must set up a second Chamber that is conspicuously a House of scrutiny, which does the kind of things at which this place, a House of government, driven by party, is not very good. This is the place that Government drives and where Government and Opposition meet. It is not the place where intensive scrutiny happens. We must strengthen scrutiny in our system by having a second Chamber that does that. If we do that, it ceases to be a threat. It is not a monster, a spectre; it is our ally in holding the Government to account. If we get that right, other things have the chance of falling into place.
	I thank the Government for giving me a chance to vote for a measure that has absolutely no consequences. This is a delightful moment, and I take full advantage of it.

Andrew Tyrie: I was very impressed by that speech, and agree with just about all of it. I pay tribute to the work of the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) and his Committee for having brought more light and less heat to this issue, which will be important when we debate it in the spring.
	It was a privilege to serve on the Joint Committee. I enjoyed it and learnt a lot. Some interesting submissions were made to it. I concluded pretty early, however, that this issue is a Westminster backwater. It is difficult to think of anything likely to excite less public interest than the codification of conventions.
	The story of what has happened since the Committee was set up can be simply told. The Government, armed with a manifesto pledge, wanted to pin down the existing self-imposed restraint on interference in the House of Lords by codifying and freezing it. They probably had a good go at trying to persuade Lord Cunningham, behind the scenes, to assist in that process.
	The manifesto called explicitly for a codification of conventions. Unfortunately, however, the Government did not get what they wanted; they failed. No substantive areas for codification were recommended. Codification itself was explicitly rejected. Let me quote a passage, which has not yet been quoted today, from paragraph 279 of the report:
	"'codification' is unhelpful ... Conventions ... are unenforceable ... codifying conventions is a contradiction in terms."
	Instead, the Committee sensibly abandoned codification and restricted itself to producing various formulae to describe a number of conventions, at paragraph 283—formulae, not codification. As far as I know, that point has so far gone entirely unremarked today.
	In the narrow sense that the Government's intention was to try to codify the existing conventions of the current House, they have clearly failed. They have also failed in a wider sense, in view of the much remarked paragraph 61. As the Committee made clear that its conclusions applied only to the current House, any attempt by the Government to use its work to bind a reformed House has failed. The Government were piqued by that, and produced a four-page response. The Leader of the House dwelt on that extensively today, encouraged to do so by a number of interventions.
	Paragraph 9 of the Government's response contains the key sentence:
	"We believe the relationship the Joint Committee describes is one which should apply to any differently composed chamber."
	That must be wrong. Over time, a differently composed Chamber will want to re-examine its own conventions, and may decide to change them. No amount of passing resolutions or codifying conventions can alter that. However, I feel that the Government should not protest too much. They did not really need to include paragraph 9, for two reasons.
	First, it would be ludicrous to reconstitute the Cunningham Committee and have a "Cunningham 3" on the first day of a reformed House of Lords. Any sensible person would agree that a passage of time—which should perhaps be measured in Parliaments rather than years—should elapse before that becomes necessary. Secondly, in any case, if we have—as I sincerely hope we will—a more democratic second Chamber, the key powers and restrictions that it tests will be not the conventions but the Parliament Acts.
	A reformed House, unlike the current House, may have the courage to use some of the real powers that it already has, particularly its power of delay and its power to reject statutory instruments. It does not use those powers now, for the simple reason that it does not have the moral authority to use them. A reformed House will have enough legitimacy to exercise the powers provided for it under the Parliament Acts, while also being restricted by them. I think it right—here I strongly agree with the hon. Member for Cannock Chase—for the House of Lords to be given that moral authority.
	I shall end by developing that point further, but first I want to make one more general point about the House of Lords as currently constituted, which I hope the other place will not consider offensive. I have enormous respect for Members of the House of Lords, a large proportion of whom are loyal and dedicated public servants, but it is an inescapable fact that whenever their Lordships debate themselves, Dr. Pangloss is out and about. He was certainly stalking the other Chamber yesterday. There was a great deal of talk about how effective the second Chamber already is, what a great job it does, and, by implication, how everything was already for the best in the best of all possible worlds. The truth is much more prosaic. We have the illusion of two-Chamber democracy, but we have the reality of something that is little more than unicameralism: a consultative assembly which, when push comes to shove, is usually too scared—even in its somewhat reformed form since 1999, or whenever it was—to take on the Executive and use the powers that it currently possesses.

Andrew Tyrie: I completely agree that we badly need reform of the way in which we scrutinise our House. One point that the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) did not make that he might have made in talking about the balance between the two Chambers is that reform in the other place will probably stimulate reform here. I think that we will get a better working and functioning House of Commons, with those changes driven and forced through because of the fact that there will be some democratic competition between the Houses.
	When I make the point to my colleagues that we do not really have bicameralism now, a number of them—I will not name them, but they are very thoughtful people—say to me, "Absolutely, and thank goodness. The illusion suits us; it means that we can keep the power here and have that consultative and advisory body there, and we can get unicameralism by the back door." I vigorously disagree with that. I have always been in favour of having a strong Executive—a Government who can get on with their job, and not be hamstrung all the time by gridlock in Parliament—but I think that this Executive has become over-mighty. We must have some rebalancing of the constitution.
	To do that, we must reform the Commons, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) has just said, but we must also reform the Lords, and if we are to do that we must give the Lords some legitimacy. In the 21st century, only a largely elected Chamber can provide such legitimacy. That is why I will strongly support the Leader of House's efforts to bring democracy to the second Chamber, if what he proposes is a majority-elected House. The public want that. I have been sitting in my seat from the beginning of the debate, and as far as I am aware the public and their views have not been mentioned even once. Every time they have been consulted, the public have said that they want such a Chamber—by majorities in the region of three to one or four to one.
	Democracy in the second Chamber is long overdue. It will not challenge the primacy of this House; we can debate that at great length in the spring, but I disagree with those who argue that it will. In a nutshell, we have the Parliament Acts and we have the source of government in this place, and the combination of those two forces will mean that this place will retain primacy. I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) that the nature of that primacy might change, but the fundamental elements of it will remain.
	Most importantly of all, if we have reform it will change not only the relationship between the Lords and the Commons, but the relationship between Parliament and the Executive, and that is what Parliament as a whole now desperately needs.

David Howarth: I am the first speaker in this debate who is neither a member of the Committee nor a distinguished Member of the House of long standing, so perhaps all that I can bring to our discussion—especially at a time when all the good points have been made several times—is a little naïve radicalism.
	I should start by saying that I was somewhat suspicious of the Committee, but I have been pleased by the result of its labours, especially on two points. The first of them is codification. I made my view on that clear in the debate in May, and I am glad that the Committee has reached a similar conclusion: that codification of conventions would rob those who wish to design new arrangements that work of an important tool that would allow flexibility in the development of the institutional arrangements that we need. Secondly, I am delighted with paragraph 61. In fact, it is that paragraph that will lead me to support the motion; if it had instead been on the Government response, I might have been in a different position.
	Paragraph 61 makes it clear that the conclusions that the Committee have come to have no relevance to a future situation involving a reformed House of Lords with an elected element. All the Committee is putting before us is its view of what the conventions are now. It is in the nature of those conventions that even that view is applicable only to now; the conventions will develop, even if the House of Lords is not reformed. I fully support that conclusion of the Committee, to which all its other conclusions are subject. So if there is any part of the report that I do not fully agree with or accept, I can console myself with paragraph 61, which removes any great problem.
	Other Members have said that in order to explain one's position on the report, it is important to explain where one is coming from on House of Lords reform. I want to make it clear that I come from the position of naïve liberal democracy. I cannot see how it is justifiable for people who have not been democratically elected to have any part in the legislative process greater than that played by ordinary citizens. The question is not necessarily expertise, but a different one: why these experts and not other experts? We all know a lot of experts, most of whom are not Members of the House of Lords, so the question that arises is: how does one become a Member of the House of Lords, even if one is an expert? The answer under the present arrangements is far from clear, and is certainly not sufficient to justify having a special part in the legislative process. It is true that it is not as important a part as that exercised by those in this House; nevertheless it is a part, and one denied to the vast majority of citizens.
	For me, the important part of the report is the one that demonstrates that, in the end, not only all the conventions but the Parliament Act itself derive their force, reason and justification from the undemocratic nature of the present House of Lords. It is the gap—the difference between the two Houses—that justifies what in reality are conventions that explain the House of Lords' self-restraint. There is no doubt that the House of Lords has many legal powers that it does not exercise. That is because of the conventions, and because it accepts those conventions.
	If we move beyond the current situation and consider a reformed House of Lords, the question that the Government have to answer is: what new reason, which has nothing to do with the gap in democratic legitimacy between the two Houses, would justify those conventions of self-restraint? It would incredible—an amazing coincidence—if precisely the same conventions turned out to be justified by any new reason for a difference between the two Houses. I cannot see how that could be the case.

Richard Shepherd: I am pleased to follow the previous three speakers, and I am grateful to them for elevating this debate. The teasing amendment on the Order Paper was tabled because we felt that the Government were complimenting the Joint Committee through gritted teeth, as it did not produce the result that they wanted. That is why I cheer.
	Anyway, I cheer any Joint Committee that refers to Hood Phillips and to "Constitutional and Administrative Law". It reminds us that this and the other House are ancient—the very foundations of our constitution. Even those of us who half-heartedly studied university courses on the constitution know that its fundamental purpose and statement is the sovereignty of Parliament. Of course people such as me say that that is a valid and virtuous doctrine, because in the democratic age the sovereignty of Parliament is shorthand for the sovereignty of the people.
	I am grateful to the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) for putting the Parliament Act 1911 into perspective. It was a temporary measure. At the time, it was clear to everyone that the Lords would move to a democratic basis.
	I think about the course taken by this country, of which we are the representative voice. Its history is ancient. There have always been two Chambers and they have always tussled and fought, but the balance, over a long time, came to this Chamber—the Commons—to the people of England, as opposed to a landed interest, a dynastic system, a creation of patronage and a hereditary principle. The primacy of the Lords became constitutionally indefensible. Popular feeling and the ability to reach people to make arguments and to affect Government grew. We accept no divine right of kings. This House brought to an end the concept that a person can by right of birth be a member of a legislature.
	It seems absolutely extraordinary that anyone could countenance the fact that a legislator in a democracy is not accountable to the people for whom they make laws. The people who bear the laws must be able to hold to account those who make them. That is such a fundamental point that I am startled that a Labour Government—as Mr. Kinnock would have said—could countenance even the thought of the sidelining ways in which the Prime Minister frustrated Robin Cook's genuine attempt to move towards a largely elected second Chamber. It was almost a repudiation of the genesis of the Labour party.
	The conflict between the two Houses does not chill me. It is a dynamic that reinforces the people. We all have different views about what public policy should be—there is nothing unusual about that. I lived under a Conservative Government who used to chant the mantra of the mandate. I live under this God-awful Government—if they will forgive me saying so—who also chant the mantra of the mandate. As the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) said, the manifesto is a curious document. None of us reads it from cover to cover, apart from those who wrote it. The public at large are unaware of it, but it provided the justification for the Lords' acceptance that the legitimacy they lacked resided elsewhere and that in the end they should defer.
	I look forward to seeing whether the Leader of the House's White Paper is a virtuous document, but if the Lords are to have legitimacy, on whatever basis, of course it will reconfigure the relationship between here and there. In truth, I look forward to that.
	The public are disengaged because, somehow, we beat a drum to a tune that they no longer hear when it comes to the issues that they wish to challenge and the importance of Government. We have become machines of spin and manipulation. Where is the blockage? Most of these arguments have long been discussed and reasoned through. We have only to think of Montesquieu's misunderstanding of the British constitution, of those English gentlemen in the United States in revolt against the Crown, of the Federalist papers, and of the long debate over the very issues that trouble us now. Those arguments are there, and yet here we are talking, and the Government insist—the mantra is still heard—that they must get their business. That has never been a constitutional principle. It is an argument of Government, of course. The Government may get their business if they are supported by Parliament. That is the function of Parliament.

William Cash: If hon. Members knew who it was, they would be even more surprised by what I am about to say. He said, "Well, Bill, you've got your job to do, and I've got mine." I thought that that was an interesting indication of behaviour, in a way, although that perhaps contradicts my point about the Whip system.
	When we are dealing with the relationship between the House of Commons and the House of Lords, we are dealing with the way in which laws are formulated. To repeat what I said earlier, I am concerned about the fact that, these days, so little time is available in the House of Commons, because Standing Orders, which are codified rules, have been imposed on the workings of the House. That has enabled the Whip system to eliminate debate and scrutiny, as a result of which it becomes ever more important for the House of Lords to perform the excellent function that it so often does.
	It is hardly surprising that, according to the evidence in the report, there has been an increase in the number of occasions on which the House of Lords, which is not entirely hereditary, has rebelled against what has been going on in the Commons, irrespective of the number of people appointed by the Prime Minister to the other House. The Lords know that if they do not examine the issues, they might not be examined at all, and that is a very good reason for the continued existence of the House of Lords.
	The primacy of this House must be retained in relation to all the matters that we have discussed, especially taxation and government, which the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) so rightly mentioned. However, that must be done without prejudice to the question, "What is a manifesto?" On the manner in which conventions are meant to operate, one aspect of the report that has intrigued, puzzled and slightly worried me is the reaffirmation of the fact that the House of Lords should be expected to put through a manifesto Bill.
	I see that there are references in the report to the fact that there should not be wrecking amendments. I have to admit to having tabled more than my reasonable share of wrecking amendments over the past 23 years, but I did so—some will doubt this—not just to be difficult or awkward, but because there were important questions that needed to be debated. On 10 May last year, in another debate on these same matters, I simply insisted, with 10 other hon. Friends and hon. Members, that the motion be put to a vote. In fact, it turned out that 20 people voted no in the deferred Division. We did so because we disagreed, at that time, with the way in which the terms of reference had been devised.
	Fundamentally, we are dealing with the apogee of self-restraint. That is what the issue of conventions between the two Houses is all about. In due course, the House of Lords is more than likely to be turned into a hybrid Chamber, in which between 70 and 80 per cent. of Members are elected. I hear what other hon. Members say—they say that they have heard it all before and it will not happen—but I sense that it is more likely to happen than not, this time round. That does not prevent or in any way inhibit the necessity of maintaining the conventions, because although the Salisbury reasons for the conventions will have gone, others are inherent in the existence of two Houses, one of which has to revise, and the other of which has to govern. We are therefore right to be concerned about the nature of those conventions. There is a wonderful expression in "Through the Looking Glass":
	"When I use a word...it means just what I choose it to mean...The question is...which is to be master—that's all."
	That consideration applies to conventions, which mean what we choose them to mean. It is a question, too, of who is to be master, but the question of behaviour is at the heart of the matter. In my previous career, I looked at the conventions a great deal, and I was deeply impressed by the work of Geoffrey Marshall, who sadly died a few years ago. I had many discussions with him and he offered an excellent summary of conventions as
	"non-legal rules of constitutional behaviour".
	Conventions have been described, too, as
	"rules of constitutional behaviour which are considered to be binding by and upon those who operate the Constitution but which are not enforced by the law courts...nor by the presiding officers in the Houses of Parliament."
	That is an interesting addition to the definition, which ultimately depends on the way in which we approach the relationship between elected representatives and the strict rules that apply to the conduct of our affairs.
	One of the most intriguing and worrying aspects of the proposals is highlighted by paragraph 9 of the Government's response. It refers to paragraph 61 of the report by the Joint Committee, which states:
	"Given the weight of evidence...should any firm proposals come forward to change the composition of the House of Lords, the conventions between the Houses would have to be examined again."
	That is obviously the case, and it raises the question of the nature of conventions. As has been said, a convention cannot exist until it is well established. Rules and behaviour are a matter of habit, practice and tradition, and it is extraordinary that the Government should suggest that
	"further reform should not alter the current role of the Lords as a revising chamber, and that the conventions governing its relationship with the Commons are fit for that purpose."
	I understand what they are trying to say, but the change in the nature of the House of Lords is bound to have an impact of the application of the conventions. As I have tried to point out, the proposal to change the Lords to a semi-elected Chamber with different functions would not in itself prevent the conventions from continuing to operate.
	It was odd that the Joint Committee should say that neither House of Parliament regularly rejects secondary legislation. It states, however, that
	"in exceptional circumstances it may be appropriate for either House to do so."
	It goes on to say:
	"Although we have offered a list of examples of exceptional circumstances...we do not recommend defining them further."
	It gives examples of statutory instruments that could be amended, such as those connected with skeleton Bills, which have been mentioned by several hon. Members. I pointed out in an intervention that under the Regulatory Reform Act 2001, which covers not just burdens on business, but a vast range of departmental activities, it is clear that given the huge sphere within which the Act will operate, and the open-ended nature of its provisions, those orders and statutory instruments must be capable of amendment.
	In an intervention on my right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House, I pointed out that only a few months ago, in June, the Opposition voted by whipping my amendment regarding that Act in order to ensure that we would be able to override the statutory instruments and other legislation that flow from the European Communities Act, and to require the judiciary, in particular the House of Lords, to comply with that subsequent Westminster legislation. That was endorsed by a further vote by my party in the House of Lords.
	That is an anchor and a huge opportunity. After all, we are on record as saying that we want to change the social chapter, for example, and I can think of many other examples among the huge raft of legislation emanating from the European Community and the European Union. The European Constitution has effectively gone for the time being, although Mrs. Merkel is re-introducing it today. My comments do not in any way absolve the Leader of the House of my train fare to Blackburn, in the light of what he said earlier.
	The necessity for us to assert the supremacy of this House lies at the heart of the relationship between ourselves and the electorate, and derives from it. It is also a matter of deep importance in the relationship between the two Houses. In relation to European legislation or devolved legislation or, for example, in relation to the question of Scottish independence, which is being raised by the Scottish nationalists, in the arrangements in the Scotland Act 1998 the question arises whether legislation should be passed in this House, as I suggested in a letter in  The Daily Telegraph yesterday, to provide for a referendum of the whole of the United Kingdom with respect to the future relationship between ourselves, Scotland and the Scottish Parliament, and also in respect of Wales and our membership of the European Union.
	With reference to the relationship between the two Houses, the question whether the legislation that will be needed is capable of being overridden by using the reserve powers of Westminster as against the Scottish Parliament to legislate could turn out to be extremely contentious. A matter of such huge constitutional importance could turn into a battleground not about a matter as irrelevant as the Hunting Act 2004, important as it was from a social and a countryside point of view, but about whether the Scottish nationalists, if they took control of the Scottish Parliament, could hold a referendum in Scotland as a devolved power. An issue of such major constitutional importance could have implications for the relationship between this House and the House of Lords. That would bring into high profile the conventions that apply between the two Houses. The issues raised in the report are of great interest. I am glad that the Committee came up with so many useful recommendations. I hesitate to say that I approve of all of them, because some matters remain unconsidered and will develop further in future. On the whole, this is not an occasion when one would feel it necessary to divide the House, but there were important reasons for doing so when the process began.
	In the past, it has always been understood as a matter of convention that if the House of Lords did not ultimately accept a subordinate role when confronted with the determined will of the House of Commons, it knew that its remaining legislative powers would be cut back still further. That is why it has backed off on so many occasions when ping-pong has gone on, sometimes on extremely important matters. Ultimately, that gives rise to the question of the way in which the Parliament Acts operate. Several Members who spoke about that legislation perhaps overlooked the fact that it is not entrenched. People think that it is more entrenched than it really is. It was born out of a massive row in 1911—but we have had massive rows for the past 400 years. Both Houses operate best when they are acting on the basis of mutually understood good behaviour as between one another.
	That pragmatic self-restraint could be put under a great deal of stress in future, particularly if there is to be an elected, or largely elected, House of Lords, which I happen to think would be a good thing. If we get the balance between the functions of the two Houses right, and if we have a different electoral cycle and system, we can avoid clashes, but we cannot avoid the necessity of maintaining the conventions in a way that prevents the unnecessary stress and tension that could otherwise arise. I look forward to hearing what the Leader of the House says by way of conclusion.

Jack Straw: If we were establishing a replica Chamber, my right hon. Friend's fears would be justified. They happen to be my fears, too, and those of anyone else who has ever thought about this matter. If we moved from the all-appointed Chamber that we have today to one in which all the Members were elected on the same day and all had constituencies, the present primacy of the House of Commons would not have a prayer. Everyone understands that; we would have two Houses of Commons. My right hon. Friend is right in that regard. However, that is not a proposition that anyone has seriously put before the House. Everyone accepts that we must avoid allowing the other place to become a replica of the House of Commons, and all the practical proposals have sought to do that.
	The royal commission looked at the matter in some detail, and received some mocking when it said in answer to one questioner that the proposals for an elected element in the other place would mean that those elected there would probably be elected by a different electoral system, and would certainly be elected for a much longer period than we are. There would also be restrictions on whether they could stand again for election to the other place. All those measures were designed to ensure that it was understood from the beginning that their role in the second Chamber was a different one, and that they were not there to replicate the House of Commons. Up to now, that view has all been broadly agreed and reflected in all the reports.
	The evidence of the Clerk of the Parliaments was cited in the debate, and I take it seriously. Indeed, I have always taken seriously the evidence of senior civil servants in the Departments in which I have worked but, in the end, we have to make our own judgments and form our own opinions. In paragraph 34, the Clerk of the Parliaments said that
	"the number of elected members and the mode election may be crucial for the survival of the convention."
	I agree with that. He went on to say:
	"For example the preservation of an appointed element in the Lords and a system of staggered elections for the remainder so that only a minority of membership is elected at any General Election is one way of protecting the convention. There may be others."
	Lest hon. Members should accuse me of partial quotation, I should point out that he continued:
	"All in all it is likely to be difficult to ensure that any definition of the convention now would survive a significant change in the composition of the Lords."
	I understand that point. The royal commission, chaired by Lord Wakeham, referred to "selection". Whatever we want to call it, however, an indirect mandate is an indirect mandate. I make that point to my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton. Model A in Lord Wakeham's report describes people being elected by complementary voting, but paragraph 12.42 supports direct election to the other place by thirds, at the same time as the European parliamentary elections.

Gerald Kaufman: My right hon. Friend, who is normally charmingly articulate, is getting tongue-tied in an effort to deal with the situation. Does he really believe that anybody elected to this House of Commons acts in a kind of vacuum and does not look ahead to the consequences at the next general election of what she or he does. Is not it fantastic that all those who propose that people should be elected in one way or other to the House of Lords then seek to erect a firewall around them, to prevent them exploiting the fact that they get there through votes?

Rob Marris: A potential environmental catastrophe is facing the country and starting to unfold. If that catastrophe comes to pass, our children and our children's children may not rue the day that we failed to take action, because those generations may not exist. I think that it is as extreme as that.
	I am, of course, referring to the challenge of climate change. This Government have a very good record on the causes of climate change, on emissions and on global warming. There is the work done at Kyoto, and the fact that we are on track to meet the Kyoto targets for cutting emissions; there is the work that we have led on carbon trading schemes; and there is the leadership that the Government have shown on the world stage. When it comes to dealing with the effects of climate change, however, the Government's record is rather more mixed. I say that despite the observation by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that the United Kingdom is one of the countries that are better placed and better prepared to deal with climate change.
	It saddens me that when we debate climate change in this place, we almost invariably talk about the causes—the emissions side—rather than about coping with the effects. I have made three long speeches in the Chamber in the past year on the effect of climate change and the things that I think the United Kingdom ought to be doing. As far as I am aware, I am the only Member who addresses the issue in the Chamber, certainly in any depth.
	Climate change is not a recent development. I learned about the effects of greenhouse gases, hydrofluorocarbons and so on when I was at university in 1973. The problem of emissions of certain gaseous substances changing our environment has been known about for well over 30 years, yet we are only now starting to take action on the effects side. Climate change is clearly happening. In my garden, until recently, we had Molyneux roses in bloom—from the excellent David Austin Roses, based near my constituency. We have had more floods and heavy rain in this country in recent years than we have experienced for thousands of years. We have also had very hot summers. My grandfather, Colonel Chetwode Crawley, skated on the Thames in the 1890s; that would have been unthinkable in recent years.
	In a recent report, the OECD said:
	"There tends to be a view that climate change is decades away and that it will affect faraway places. But if you look at the Alps... you can tell it is happening already."
	It is certainly happening in faraway places. Christian Aid says:
	"Poorer countries are often located in the regions of the world where the climate is already variable and highly volatile. These countries are likely to experience a significant increase in both variability and volatility even if the increase in global average temperature was kept within two degrees."
	Christian Aid is absolutely right about the effects in other countries, and I do not wish to downgrade that, but I want to focus on the effects in the United Kingdom, which can be crudely divided into winter and summer effects.
	Winter effects include coastal erosion, with higher tides and increasing water levels as the temperature of the water rises, and coastal and inland flooding. The diameters of storm water drains are insufficient and larger diameters will be needed. The same applies to drainpipes on buildings. There is disruption to logistics in the supply chain if transport is interfered with, for example by flooding. Similarly and more prosaically, there is the problem of rats. We have more rats now because winters are less cold and they do not die off.
	As for the summer effects, they include health effects such as an increased incidence of heatstroke and probably of skin cancers. The asthma season is getting longer and tropical diseases such as malaria are starting to come into southern England. Alien predator species are also coming in, there are effects on wildlife and the crops that we grow, and there is a need for reservoirs in the summer. We have had a drought in the south-east since 2004, and it is almost a year-round drought.
	One subject that straddles the two crude sides of the equation that I have mentioned—the winter and the summer—is the issue of building regulations. We need to do more in respect of water efficiency and shade because of droughts in the summer. We need to do more in terms of insulation to cut emissions, too. There must also be improvements such as better waterproofing and drainpipes, because of heavier rainfall in the winter.
	What are bodies other than the Government doing? Encouraging things are being done in the United Kingdom. Around the country, the Wildlife Trust is already dealing with the challenge. Its recent report, "A Living Landscape", highlights the importance of landscape scale and gives examples of work being done. The black country urban park takes that approach in the urban area that the Minister and I represent—as do you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Wildlife Trust for Birmingham and the Black Country has been working with the four local authorities in the area to identify and improve open spaces and to develop corridors for wildlife with rivers and canals. The Smestow valley in my constituency is one such focus. As well as improving the wildlife value of the black country, that work should help to build and repair local communities and bring economic and social and health benefits to the people who live there.
	The City of London has commissioned a consultancy—called, appropriately, Acclimatise—to assist in developing a climate change adaptation strategy for the City. A report will be published shortly, and it will make recommendations for action and develop practical tools to enable the City of London and its stakeholders to take into account the changing climate.
	The Royal & SunAlliance insurance company, the third largest general insurer in the United Kingdom, insures more than 1.3 million private homes. It remains committed to providing cover against flood damage for its customers. I salute it for that, because that it is difficult as more than 500,000 homes are at significant risk of flooding. The Stern report said that the cost of flooding to the UK
	"could increase from 0.1 per cent. of GDP to 0.3-0.4 per cent. of GDP if the global average temperature increases by 3 or 4(o)C."
	The Association of British Insurers has done excellent work on adapting to the effects of climate change. Its "Financial risks of climate change" document was published in 2005; its "A future for the floodplains" was published last July; and it also published "Coastal flood risk—thinking for tomorrow, acting today" last November, which is only two months ago.
	The ABI recommends ensuring that current building codes reflect future severe weather conditions, investing extra in improved coastal defences and a long-term flood management strategy. It points out:
	"Many of the potential costs could be avoided by taking action now."
	It also points out:
	"Some 570,000 homes are at high flood risk, compared with the estimate of 220,000 when current flood defence spending levels were set in 2002."
	That total has increased a lot in the past four years. It recommends that Government spending on flood defences needs to increase by 10 per cent. a year to £750 million by 2011. It is absolutely right.
	The Environment Agency has produced a wonderful briefing, which it sent to me in preparation for the debate, on the need to adapt to the unavoidable consequences of climate change. It talks about addressing flash flooding, winter flooding, winter storms and sea level rise, threats to water supply, hot summers and threats to biodiversity.
	Last March, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs produced a document, "Climate Change the UK programme 2006"—which is a good start. Last month, the Department for Communities and Local Government produced a consultation document entitled, "Planning Policy Statement: Planning and Climate Change, Supplement to Planning Policy Statement 1". Those documents are steps forward, as is the Stern report, of course, which was published last autumn. But what worries me in particular about them is that although the DEFRA document, for example, talks about adapting to and dealing with the effects of climate change, less than 10 per cent. of it deals with that aspect of climate change. More than 90 per cent. of it deals with the causes—with emissions. That balance is wrong.
	There is a similar situation with the DCLG consultation document, which states:
	"'Planning and Climate Change' sets out how the spatial planning system should contribute to reducing carbon emissions (mitigation) arising from built development. The PPS also provides guidance on how the planning regime should address the climate change now accepted as inevitable, such as sea level rise and higher temperatures (adaptation)."
	But again, only a fairly small proportion of that document actually deals with effects and adaptation. The same is true of the Stern report. From memory, only about 40 of its 700-odd pages deal with adaptation. We have got the balance wrong.
	I salute the work of the Minister, who was in Great Yarmouth on Monday introducing an initiative to assist 90 properties. That is part of an overall initiative involving 15 pilot schemes and a budget of £1.7 million, which is aimed at minimising the growing problem of urban flooding.
	The sadness is that although we have known about this problem for a long time, many of these documents still talk about the research that needs to be done. Of course research is important, but I wish that we had started on it much more comprehensively and a longer time ago. Under DEFRA, we have the UK climate impacts programme, but my suspicion is that it is rather under-resourced. It consists of 15 scientists based at Oxford, and from what I have seen they are doing good work, but I suggest to the Minister that in order to deal with adaptation—the effects of climate change, which are already taking place in this country—that programme, or something very like it, needs to be expanded greatly now, instead of waiting.
	I have a series of questions for the Minister, based on the proposals outlined in last spring's DEFRA document entitled, "Climate Change: the UK Programme 2006". I quite understand that he might not be able to answer all of them tonight. By what date will the adaptation policy framework be published? Has the review and assessment of existing and new policies for their vulnerability to climate change impacts, and their contribution to adaptation, been completed and published? If not, when will it be published? Has the study of the potential role of regulation and standards in accelerating action to adapt, in order to inform future development of the adaptation policy framework, been initiated? If so, what is the expected publication date? If it has not been initiated, by what date will it be? What was the funding of the UK climate impact programme in each of the past five years, and what is the anticipated funding for each of the following three years?
	I should be grateful if the Minister said whether the study of the business costs and benefits of adapting to climate change has been initiated. If so, what is the expected publication date? If it has not been initiated, by what date will it be? By what date will the UK Biodiversity Partnership publish its practical guidance? By what date will the revised guidance statement on the role of spatial planning be published, if it is not the document to which I have already referred? By what date will the revised guidance on implementing flood and coastal erosion risk management measures be published? By what date will the results of collaborative research on the effects of climate change on UK priority species be published? By what date will the long-term monitoring network on the effects of climate change on UK priority species be published? By what date will the review of current activities to assess the impact of climate change on the marine environment be published? Has the assessment of changes in the distribution and abundance of marine species been published, and if so on what date? Finally, has the programme of research to investigate cross-sectoral issues been commissioned, and if so on what date?
	The convention of the House is that if one has an Adjournment debate on a particular topic, as I have tonight, any other hon. Member who wishes to make a brief comment should seek permission from the Member and Minister concerned. It is sad that on what I regard as a major issue for this country, not a single hon. Member has approached me and there is not a single Opposition Member in their place. This issue is a huge challenge for our country and we have not yet gone far enough to meet it.
	My final, rather poignant, point is about an article that I clipped from  The Sunday Times last Sunday, which refers to Sir David Attenborough presenting a "near-apocalyptic vision" of Britain's future in a BBC documentary "Climate Change: Britain Under Threat", which will be screened next Sunday. It presents projected snapshots of Britain in 2020, 2050 and 2080. By 2050, average temperatures could have risen by 2.5°C, and by 2080 by 4°C. That is a massive change. It is poignant because when I turned over the newspaper clipping, I found printed on the other side an advertisement for cheap flights.

Ian Pearson: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) on securing this Adjournment debate on adapting to the effects of climate change. I am grateful to him for raising this subject, because I agree that it is one about which we do not speak often enough. I assure my hon. Friend that the Government are in no way complacent about the issue.
	On the general point that my hon. Friend made about the number of pages devoted to adaptation, as opposed to mitigation, in the Stern report or the climate change programme review, I would point out that some of the most complex mathematical proofs are elegantly short. Some of the best books are not the lengthiest. Similarly, one cannot judge the quality of a speech by its length.
	We all know and understand why it is vital to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. The science is increasingly widely accepted. Even countries that have been sceptical about climate change are starting to listen. In the United States, for the first time ever, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration is now saying that greenhouse gas increases are causing climate change—a marked change from just a year or two ago. The publication of the EU's climate change and energy package last Wednesday shows how effective the UK's leadership has been in getting action to cut emissions across Europe. But tackling climate change requires more than just mitigation, as my hon. Friend has rightly argued. Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions is vital to ensure that we avoid future dangerous climate change, but we also need to adapt to the unavoidable impacts caused by past emissions.
	Adaptation does not signal a failure in our efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. Carbon stays in the system for around 100 years, and because of inertia in the climate system, the warming effects peak about 40 years after emission. So the climate change that we are experiencing now is caused by our past emissions. Even if greenhouse gas emissions stopped completely tomorrow, a certain amount of further climate change is inevitable. So we need to adapt to the impacts that we are already seeing, and those that we expect to see in the future.
	I do not propose to recount the evidence in detail, but impacts such as the 35,000 excess deaths across Europe during the 2003 heat wave, and the £6 billion worth of insurance claims for flood and storm damage between 1998 and 2003 here in the UK, could become more severe and more commonplace in the future. Certainly, the weather over the past few weeks has not been what any of us expect in January. We may not have been sunbathing as they were in New York, but last night I saw people sitting out on the Terrace of the House of Commons in what should be one of the coldest months of the year.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West rightly pointed out that last year Sir Nick Stern set out the challenges that we face. Adaptation can be complex, and there are many constraints that we need to overcome. In particular, we need to deal with uncertainty about how our climate will change and what level of risk we need to plan for. At the same time, however, Stern also argues that in many cases adaptation options will provide benefits in excess of the costs.
	Early action to deal with the impacts of climate change will reduce damage to the environment, property and quality of life. A study by the Association of British Insurers showed that for new developments in east London, proactive measures to prepare for climate change could reduce the annual costs of flooding by almost 80 to 90 per cent., a saving of almost £1 billion.
	Adaptation can also provide benefits that go beyond those relating to climate change. For instance, incorporating green space in urban environments helps keep surrounding buildings cooler, improves water management, supports biodiversity, provides local recreation facilities and helps foster sustainable communities.
	My honourable Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West has said on more than one occasion that we were not doing enough to deal with the impacts of climate change in the UK. He is right: we are not. Despite all the available information and evidence, only 10 per cent. of FTSE 100 companies say that they are taking into account the impacts of climate change when looking at their risk management strategies.
	The construction industry could be one of the sectors hardest hit by climate change, but it also has the opportunity to provide key wins on adaptation. However, more than 40 per cent. of companies expressed little or no concern about their vulnerability to the impacts of climate change.
	We can—and we need to—do much more to ensure that the UK adapts to climate change successfully. Our objective must be to ensure that the UK is well adapted, in both the business and the household sector, and in government. However, it is not just a Government responsibility, it is a national responsibility.
	Everyone needs to factor climate change into their risk-management and decision-making frameworks. We all need to ask ourselves, "In 10, 20 or 40 years' time, will my objectives, investments or infrastructure still be viable in the face of a changing climate?" However, although we can and must do more, it is important to recognise what we have achieved already, both at home and internationally.
	The UK is a world leader in impacts and adaptation work. Our climate impacts programme, UKCIP, will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year. It was set up by the then Department of the Environment in 1997, with just two people to co-ordinate impacts research. Now, it has a staff of 16 who work with a wide variety of organisations, including local authorities, planners, financial institutions, schools and public sector bodies to develop tools and methods to implement adaptation strategies.
	Well-adapted buildings must be a priority. One example is Redhill school in Worcester, not far from my constituency, or from that of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West. By using UKCIP's adaptation wizard, the architect and the local council have designed a building that includes a number of adaptation features, including sustainable drainage, a green roof to help reduce run-off and cool the classrooms, and overhanging eaves and canopies to prevent the school from overheating in the hotter summers that we are expecting, and are already experiencing.
	Last week I met the co-ordinators of the regional climate change partnerships. They work with people from a wide variety of local sectors, raising awareness of adaptation and building capacity to implement adaptation strategies. They have set up a number of excellent projects. I mentioned the example of Redhill school, but another is the urban redevelopment project at Bilston, a borough represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West. It is a classic example of what can be done. Climate change considerations were built into the project from the start, keeping extra costs down and ensuring better protection against increased rainfall and good environmental benefits.
	The south-west partnership is working with the tourist industry to develop an adaptation action pack. The London partnership has published a checklist for development, which gives developers guidance about how to minimise climate change impacts when designing buildings. Such guidance is being used more and more widely across the UK. I could list many other excellent examples of the work of those partnerships, supported by UKCIP.
	I want to highlight local government, which is of key importance. Local authorities are in a prime position to deliver adaptation on the ground. They manage a range of services and have responsibilities for a number of the functions that are being affected by our changing climate—for example, flooding, social services, housing, the environment and biodiversity. A number of local authorities are leading the way and we are working with them to raise awareness of adaptation among others.
	More than 200 local authorities have now signed the Nottingham declaration, committing them to take action on both mitigation and adaptation. To support their work, UKCIP, the Energy Saving Trust and the Carbon Trust have developed a web-based tool to guide local authorities through the development of adaptation and mitigation strategies.
	UKCIP continues to develop new tools for local authorities. It is piloting local climate impact profiles—a way to give councils real insight into the local impacts that may occur in a changing climate and also to look at lessons learned from past weather events.
	Our work is not limited to the United Kingdom. We are leading the way overseas, too. We have developed bilateral programmes with China and India to support them in assessing the impacts of climate change. We are also heavily involved in international negotiations under the UN framework convention on climate change, which produced successful agreement of the Nairobi adaptation work plan in November 2006 at the climate change conference in Kenya. That five-year programme of work will assist all parties, in particular in developing countries, to improve their understanding and assessment of impacts, vulnerability and adaptation, and to make more informed decisions on practical adaptation actions and measures, which will allow them to respond to climate change on a sound and planned scientific, technical and socio-economic basis.
	Meanwhile, the Department for International Development has ensured that its development projects are resilient to projected climate change. Its country action plans take climate change into account and it works with Governments to make climate change a real consideration in planning policy. Again, that echoes the approach that we are taking at home: adaptation must not be seen as a stand-alone policy, but as something that must be taken into account in all sectors.
	I want to say something about our work on phase 2 of the adaptation policy framework for the UK. As I have already said, our phase 1 consultation showed that there is much activity on the ground, but we need a national framework to give a strategic and coherent vision of what a well-adapted UK should look like. I realise that the Government need to provide strong leadership and clear direction. In phase 2, we are drawing up a cross-Government framework, which will identify priority areas for action, where Departments can work more closely together to ensure that effective action is taken. It will define Government roles and responsibilities, encourage each Department to draw up its own assessment of climate change impacts and ensure that the Government put adaptation into the mainstream across all their work. It is my intention that the framework will be published at the end of this year.
	As I have already said, we need to do much more. We cannot do this work alone. For the UK successfully to adapt to climate change, Government action alone is not enough. All decision-makers—in the public and private sectors, at national and local level—need to take climate change into account on a daily basis and to plan for the adaptation work that will be needed for the future.
	We are not just talking about a future event, however. Climate change is already happening, and we all need to take responsibility for dealing with the changes. Of course, we want action on mitigation so that we can lessen the future impact, but there is absolutely no doubt that winning the battle against climate change requires concerted effort both on mitigation and adaptation. Yes, we have to stop the rise in greenhouse gases, but we also have to face the reality of a climate that is changing and ensure that we are equipped to deal with it.
	Again, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West on securing a debate on an issue of key importance to all our futures. He put a number of detailed questions about the climate change programme review. Given the limited time for the debate, I shall write to him about those, but I want to assure him again that the Government are not complacent and that we are committed—
	 The motion having been made at Seven o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Madam Deputy Speaker  adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
	 Adjourned at half-past Seven o'clock.